Yes, I read the NEW YORK/CALIFORNIA POST, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Have been doing so since practically the moment I could read on my own, even long before Rupert Murdoch and family got their grubby little claws on it. I love their sports coverage and I’m fascinated by how they use screaming headlines and raw emotion to capture attention, even from those of us who might otherwise try and put on airs that they’re above it. Besides, their parent company compensated me handsomely for a total of 15 years. So sue me.
And it was during those years that I saw first-hand how those sausages were made and the cynical yet spot on attitudes of the wienermiesters in charge of it. Two in particular who came from Murdoch’s press and TV holdings in Australia who were masterminding A CURRENT AFFAIR would willingly share their philosophies with us disbelieving colleagues over working breakfasts complete with heavily alcohol-infused Bloody Marys when we were all fresh off delayed redeyes; all of our respective orbs could be described in the same manner. And one particular insight has stayed with me all of these years:
There’s only two kinds of stories anyone gives a sh-t about, mate. Those that make you wish it was happening to them and those that make you damn glad it’s not.
But when they’d say that, they’d quickly remind they were anything but the first to have such an attitude. They’d accurately cite the pioneers of journalism–Henry Luce, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst–as being similarly driven and that core value was a disproportionate reason why they achieved both the impact and riches that they did. “We learned from you”, crowed these red-faced Aussies, who knew damn well we too were getting rich for much the same reason.
So when I see headlines and clickbait screaming the latest on what’s been happening with the Guthrie family in Tucson, Arizona, I’m anything but surprised. The case continues to take on oxygen as every hour passes that an 84-year-old woman dependent upon medication to live is missing from her loved ones, one of whom just happens to be the co-host of an iconic morning show that’s been around for 71 of her years. The concerns and frustrations that Savannah and her siblings convey in their emotional videos, both those they intend for the forces that perpetrated this as well as the millions that have become increasingly wrapped up in it, have grown exponentially since last Sunday morning when the first news of matriarch Nancy’s disappearance was first reported. And so has the degree of coverage that just about every media outlet with a pulse and a heart devotes to it.
Look, I completely get why Guthrie’s comrades in arms at NBC and Versant are invested; heck, Savannah’s a colleague and friend and indeed Mama Nancy has made several guest appearances on the show herself. To a sizable legion of those show’s fans, she’s practically America’s Grandmother. She’s family. And the mere thought of anything like that happening to anyone in any of ours is triggering.
As THE NEW YORK TIMES’ Michael Levenson thoughtfully reported last weekend, this is yet one more example of exactly what my former colleagues educated me about:
Ms. Guthrie’s disappearance is the latest case of its kind to capture the nation’s attention, reviving fears that have been stoked by the abductions of Charles A. Lindbergh’s baby, Charles Augustus Jr.; Patty Hearst; J. Paul Getty III; Etan Patz; Adam Walsh; and Polly Klaas, to name a few. By the mid-1980s, such cases, combined with misleading claims that as many as 50,000 children were being abducted by strangers every year, had fueled a panic that left “a residue of anxiety about stranger abductions that lasted quite a while,” said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire…The Denver Post won a Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for a series that examined the myth that most missing children had been abducted by strangers, and found that a majority were runaways or involved in custody disputes.
How ironic that such a topic would win honors named for a publisher that exploited those kind of outsized fears and concerns to their advantages, and for yet another publication called the Post. And in parsing through the names of those whose abductions attracted the level of attention that we’ve seen in the Nancy Guthrie case, one should note that Henry Luce made a lot of hay with his magazine’s relentless coverage of the Lindbergh baby case. And I for one remember vividly how more than a half-century ago the Patricia Hearst story dominated TV even more than Guthrie’s saga now does. 
The fact that she is also a family member of a prominent media personality is yet nother example of irony. Indeed, one whose own family immensely profited from the two-month pursuit for the whereabouts of Charles Lindbergh, Junior–a case that eventually reached tragic conclusions, as Wikipedia reminds for those of us a tad too young or lazy to have already known about it:
On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. (born June 22, 1930), the 20-month-old son of Col. Charles Lindbergh and his wife, aviator and author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was murdered after being abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs’ home, Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey, United States. On May 12, the child’s corpse was discovered by a truck driver by the side of a nearby road in adjacent Hopewell Township.[2][3]In September 1934, a German immigrant carpenter named Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested for the crime. After a trial that lasted from January 2 to February 13, 1935, he was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Despite his conviction, Hauptmann continued to profess his innocence, but all appeals failed and he was executed in the electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison on April 3, 1936.[4]
Yes, we all should be praying for the safe and sound return of Nancy Guthrie. But history–both that of cases like this and her own medical journey–can’t not provoke the overriding thought that this has more chances to wind up with similar results. Which to be a trye cynic would also mean that a prolonged manhunt for the person(s) responsbile for this reprehensible act will likely extend the shelf life of this story well beyond the typical expiration date of others.
And I fully expect News Corporation media to continue to be on it like white on rice. You do remember that they embraced the anger of frustration of John Walsh, the father of 6-year-old Adam who suffered a similar fate to Charles Lindbergh, Junior, and created a franchise called AMERICA’S MOST WANTED that became an early and very cost-effective hit for FOX. 
I was there for that rollout that quickly delivered numbers both local and national, much to the satisfication of my hard-drinking Aussie colleagues. They seem to know what you seem to want to care about even if you aren’t immediately capable of acknowledging it yourself.
So while the NBC family of networks, and even Savannah Guthrie’s direct competitors on other network morning shows, may have some true skin in this game I would merely like to ask the same question to the Murdochs and their toadies that I tend to ask folks who only seem to reach out to me after they hear about an earthquake hitting Los Angeles. What, NOW, you care?
They know better than most how to glean attention and have an immediate need to maintain momentum. Last week ADWEEK’s Mark Mwachiro chronicled exactly how they’re uptrending so far this winter. This from an organization that has gleefully chronicled the dalliances and foibles of Savannah Guthrie’s predecessors on THE TODAY SHOW such as Katie Couric and Matt Lauer and has paid outsized attention to the ramblings and “truths” of the farter-in-chief who regularly ridicules the guy who directly competes with her for target viewers, George “Slopadopulous”. And yep, every minute and column inch they devoted to the case of Nancy Guthrie is one less that they need to focus on others’, such as those turning up with alarming regularity in the now (mostly) unredacted files of those related to Jeffrey Epstein.
Maybe I’m yet again being a tad too cynical with my approach and assumptions. And no, I can’t call anyone out for being sucked into this because all we’re doing is exactly what our parents and grandparents did done decades earlier. Give a sh-t about something you’re damn glad isn’t happening to us.
But you know who could and should ask the questions about why all of a sudden News Corporation has embraced a story about an NBC personality and her family?
Nancy Guthrie.
She wouldn’t be the first 84-year-old grandmother to be that suspicious. I wonder how many you know and/or may be related to have asked that of you? Have you done anything recently to be as responsive to them as you are this story?
I pray she somehow gets the chance to ask just that of Rupert and Lachlan herself.
Until next time…